those who had invested in them so many dollars. And yet the very first
section of that part of the statute under which they were tried lays down
an explicit recognition of their humanity: "And whereas natural justice
forbids that any _person_, of what condition soever, should be condemned
unheard." So thoroughly, in the whole report, are the ideas of person and
chattel intermingled, that when Gov. Bennett petitions for mitigation of
sentence in the case of his slave Batteau, and closes, "I ask this,
gentlemen, as an individual incurring a severe and distressing loss," it
is really impossible to decide whether the predominant emotion be
affectional or financial.

It is a matter of painful necessity to acknowledge that the proceedings
of most slave-tribunals have justified the honest admission of Gov. Adams
of South Carolina, in his legislative message of 1855: "The
administration of our laws, in relation to our colored population, by our
courts of magistrates and freeholders, as these courts are at present
constituted, calls loudly for reform. Their decisions are rarely in
conformity with justice or humanity." This trial, as reported by the
justices themselves, seems to have been no worse than the
average,--perhaps better. In all, thirty-five were sentenced to death,
thirty-four to transportation, twenty-seven acquitted by the court, and
twenty-five discharged without trial, by the Committee of
Vigilance,--making in all one hundred and twenty-one.

The sentences pronounced by Judge Kennedy upon the leading rebels, while
paying a high tribute to their previous character, of course bring all
law and all Scripture to prove the magnitude of their crime. "It is a
melancholy fact," he says, "that those servants in whom we reposed the
most unlimited confidence have been the principal actors in this wicked
scheme." Then he rises into earnest appeals. "Are you incapable of the